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Are You A Good Driver? Ask Your Teenager

What’s more demoralizing than getting pulled over by a cop? Getting scolded by your teenager for bad driving behavior.

It’s happened to me more than once since my 16-year-old daughter started to drive. She’s caught me speeding, failing to signal and driving over a curb because I was too busy chatting (hard not to notice). Once or twice she’s even grabbed the smartphone out of my hand to prevent me from making a call.

But I don’t ever text while driving (hardly ever, that is), and I assume she doesn’t either. After all, I’ve warned her again and again about the dangers of distracted driving.

But as with most behaviors, it’s not what parents say, but what they do, that influences how their kids behave behind the wheel. And parents who talk on cell phones, send texts or eat and drink while driving have teenagers who are more likely to do the same, according to preliminary findings of a new safety study by Toyota Motor and the University of Michigan.

“Driver education begins the day a child’s car seat is turned around to face front,” said Dr. Tina Sayer, principal engineer at Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center, which sponsored the study.

“Children look to their parents for a model of what is acceptable,” added Dr. Ray Bingham, research professor at U of M’s Transportation Research Institute and head of the Young Driver Behavior and Injury Prevention Group. “Parents should know that every time they get behind the wheel with their child in the car they are providing a visible example that their child is likely to follow.”

No surprise, then, that more than half of teens (54 percent) say they use a hand-held cell phone while driving, similar to the 61 percent of parents who say they do so.

Here’s the interesting – and worrisome – part, though. It turns out that what teens think their parents do behind the wheel matters more than what Mom or Dad actually say they do. “Overall, teens think that their parents engage in distracted driving behaviors more often than may be the case, which may allow them to justify certain high-risk behaviors behind the wheel,” Bingham said.

For example, if a teen’s parent reports dealing with passenger issues while driving, the teen is twice as likely to do the same. But if a teen thinks his or her parent deals with passenger issues while driving, the teen is five times more likely to do so themselves.

Likewise, if a teen’s parent reports looking for something in the vehicle while driving or reports eating or drinking while driving, the teen is twice as likely to do the same. But the teen is four times more likely to do those things if he or she thinks their parents do them.

A third of teens believe their parents use an iPod or other electronic device for music while driving, while only 10 percent of parents report that they do. Seventy-one percent of teens believe their parents read or write down directions while driving, while 55 percent of parents say they actually do. Eighty-five percent of teens believe their parents deal with passenger issues while driving, while 70 percent of parents say they do.

The correlation between parent and teen driving behaviors – and the disconnect between what teens think their parents do vs. what the parents report – came to light in UMTRI’s national telephone surveys of more than 5,500 young drivers and parents, including interviews with 400 pairs of teens and parents from the same household.

Here are some other reasons to worry:

Texting While Driving Remains Pervasive: More than a quarter of teens (26 percent) read or send a text message at least once every time they drive. Yet only one percent of their parents think their kids are doing that. Parents are slightly more disciplined behind the wheel (or maybe they get fewer text messages). Nine percent respond to at least one text every time they drive, while 13 percent of them read a text or email while driving. The scariest part: 20 percent of teens and 10 percent of parents admit that they have extended, multi-message text conversations while driving.

Digital and Social Media Are Distracting Teen Drivers: More than half of teens (53 percent) search for music on their iPod while driving, compared to 12 percent of parents. And 11 percent of teenagers say they update or check social media, such as Facebook or Twitter, while driving.

Social media and smartphones are not going away, so it’s pointless to try to ban them in vehicles. Instead, carmakers and tech companies need to work harder and faster to come up with systems that are easy to use and minimize the time spent with eyes off the road and hands off the wheel.

But a big takeaway from the study for parents of teen drivers like me is to set a good example for our kids. “Seat belts and good defensive driving skills are critical,” said Sayer, but her best advice is this: “Always be the driver you want your teen to be.”

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This made me remember when I, as the oldest teen in my neighborhood, became the car-pool driver for getting to school. When one of my passengers got her learner’s permit, her mother started teaching her to drive. She had a terrible habit of yelling at other drivers for doing stupid things on the road. Her mom asked her why she was yelling so much and she said she learned it from me. I didn’t even realize I was doing it!

Usually, dad would drive the kids to school, but on this particular day, mom was recruited for the duty as dad had to go to work early. Half-way to school the little boy asked his mom…”Where are all the jerks, idiots and a**holes this morning mom?”

As a two year-old, my boy started yelling “Come on! Come on!” whenever a traffic light turned to green. And it was my wife he was imitating, not me! However he did share several tales about our journeys, complete with splendid descriptions of morons and idiots who didn’t know how to drive – I confess that was my doing! It is so easy to pass these traits on to our little ones without even realising.